Writing Plays

There's an interesting article in the Chicago Reader about why playwrights can't make a living.

Basically it's because dynamic theaters want to produce new works. Funders like it, it makes you look like you're doing something. If you're producing another goddamned Seagull or freakin' Cherry Orchard, you're basically in Hell.

The problem is that this notion extends into relatively new works. So producing theaters (which I'm distinguishing from places like Theatresource which, since they got rid of their artistic director, isn't producing anymore -- it's more like a 50-seat road-house) don't tend to want to do a work which was originally produced a few months ago somewhere else.